Just a little history ,this was our 41st Cruise and our 3 rd on The QM2 , we've cruised all the major Cruise lines ,from inside cabins to Owners suites ,So we pretty much know what to expect . We choose this cruise because it seemed like a good value and according to all the printed material we viewed online ,they were staying to 10 PM on 2 of our favorite Islands , St Maarten and Barbados . [ see attached pics] At the time In May when we decided to book on Cunard we already had a Cruise booked at the same time [RCCL Anthem] so we had to pay 200.00 to re-book the RCCL cruise to a later date and booked on the QM2 .
All went fairly smooth as we live on long Island ,and had car service to the Pier . Embarkation was a little slow ,But we were on the ship within one hour .
The ship itself is a very elegant, But showing wear in both the staterooms and common area's ,Like in many places there are "soft spots " in the floor ,where you step down and get the feeling that the Carpet is all thats supporting you ,some were actually marked with cones .
The Good
Here's some of the good, Nice Gym ,no problem with crowding ,excellent Library , The Kings Court was OK for breakfast ,good omelets, breads etc. Stateroom was adequate ,by no means spacious ,with enough storage for a 13 day cruise . My wife seemed to enjoy the Puzzles that were available on deck 2 forward ,she and a group of people she met onboard spent hours on these 1000 piece puzzles, [ I have no interest in this]
My sea days started with a visit to the gym , which was never really crowded, I guess because a good portion of the passengers were in there 70 and 80s , then head up to the Buffet for breakfast , Had my omelet chef trained how I like my omelet by the second day , He was good as I'm picky about any oil in my omelet,
I spent at lease 2 hours a day in the casino at the black jack table ,the first night one of my table mates hit it big ,had 5.00 chip on the Lucky Ladies , he was dealt 2 queen of hearts and the dealer had black-jack payoff ,I believe he walked away with 6,250.00 nice on a 5.00 bet , first time I ever saw that in my 10 years of playing blackjack
The Bad
After a few visits to, the Kings Court for lunch which was always crowded, the lunch selection were only OK limited sandwiches, Sushi was available on certain days and was fresh . Tried dinner [to avoid formal nights] a couple of times and it was not good , seems like they put the better quality cuts out first , but if you show up at 7.30-8.00 it's gone and what was left was either over cooked or Luke warm at best , I decided to rename the Kings Court the Canine Court ,as most of the food I tried was only suitable for a Canine , Instead of thinking what can I choose today ,it turned into what can I possibly stand to try today , most choices were either cold or overcooked .
We expected the Britannia Restaurant to be much better ,but we soon found out that it's not much better than the Buffet, although the service was good the waiters tried there best to satisfy us ,but you can't blame the waiter if the steak is tough or the fist is cooked to death , . . Our last QM2 cruise was in 2010 and it was excellent ,overall both service and food has declined considerably since 2010
Our room Horrible pillows , use a Duvet instead of a top sheet , How to cook in the Caribbean, this might be OK for an Alaska Cruise ,but not for the Caribbean .Even with the room temp all the way cold its still way to hot . No interactive TV system ,But did have a nice flat screen TV
Overall it appears Cunard is trying to Cut Costs and relying on its past reputation ,to target 1st time cruisers ,that don't have any history to compare more modern newer ships .
The Deceptive
On about the 3rd sea day we went to the Pursers office to check times in Port as they claimed to have changed the Itinerary , This is when we found out that they were not staying to 10.00 pm in either St Maarten or Barbados , we were told that they never stay past 5.30 and that our travel agent had printed the wrong times . Very Unhappy ,we talked to about 6 other couples that had viewed the same info from different travel agency's, one couple offered to let us make copy's of the Itinerary they had with them ,we brought that to the pursers office ,but they claimed it didn't have enough info . the next day were in St Thomas ,we called out travel agent and had them email a copy of the Itinerary to the ship. Sure enough St Maarten and Barbados were listed as staying to 10.00 PM . They claimed they had to contact Corporate office , a few days later we were contacted by the person in charge of the Pursers claiming that even though we proved them wrong they had the option of changing ports and times at there digression. I kind of expected this ,but they offered to write a letter stating that the itinerary was changed and we might get some compensation from our trip insurance . Right Good luck with that .
I feel like we got scammed , these are tricks that you might expect from a used car dealer ,not a claimed 5 star cruise line . We paid for 10 extra hrs as advertised [ bait] and than got zero with no compensation [switch] I would have been satisfied for the 200.00 it cost us to change cruises .
I Can't recommend this cruise or ship when they pull stunts like this ,avoid them, even if this was listed by mistake ,they should have offered a retraction ,before we made the final payment ,Not while we had started out cruise.
We won't set foot on this ship ever again .

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Just a little history ,this was our 41st Cruise and our 3 rd on The QM2 , we've cruised all the major Cruise lines ,from inside cabins to Owners suites ,So we pretty much know what to expect . We choose this cruise because it seemed like a good value and according to all the printed material we viewed online ,they were staying to 10 PM on 2 of our favorite Islands , St Maarten and Barbados . [ see attached pics] At the time In May when we decided to book on Cunard we already had a Cruise booked at the same time [RCCL Anthem] so we had to pay 200.00 to re-book the RCCL cruise to a later date and booked on the QM2 .

All went fairly smooth as we live on long Island ,and had car service to the Pier . Embarkation was a little slow ,But we were on the ship within one hour .

The ship itself is a very elegant, But showing wear in both the staterooms and common area's ,Like in many places there are "soft spots " in the floor ,where you step down and get the feeling that the Carpet is all thats supporting you ,some were actually marked with cones .

The Good

Here's some of the good, Nice Gym ,no problem with crowding ,excellent Library , The Kings Court was OK for breakfast ,good omelets, breads etc. Stateroom was adequate ,by no means spacious ,with enough storage for a 13 day cruise . My wife seemed to enjoy the Puzzles that were available on deck 2 forward ,she and a group of people she met onboard spent hours on these 1000 piece puzzles, [ I have no interest in this]

My sea days started with a visit to the gym , which was never really crowded, I guess because a good portion of the passengers were in there 70 and 80s , then head up to the Buffet for breakfast , Had my omelet chef trained how I like my omelet by the second day , He was good as I'm picky about any oil in my omelet,

I spent at lease 2 hours a day in the casino at the black jack table ,the first night one of my table mates hit it big ,had 5.00 chip on the Lucky Ladies , he was dealt 2 queen of hearts and the dealer had black-jack payoff ,I believe he walked away with 6,250.00 nice on a 5.00 bet , first time I ever saw that in my 10 years of playing blackjack

The Bad

After a few visits to, the Kings Court for lunch which was always crowded, the lunch selection were only OK limited sandwiches, Sushi was available on certain days and was fresh . Tried dinner [to avoid formal nights] a couple of times and it was not good , seems like they put the better quality cuts out first , but if you show up at 7.30-8.00 it's gone and what was left was either over cooked or Luke warm at best , I decided to rename the Kings Court the Canine Court ,as most of the food I tried was only suitable for a Canine , Instead of thinking what can I choose today ,it turned into what can I possibly stand to try today , most choices were either cold or overcooked .

We expected the Britannia Restaurant to be much better ,but we soon found out that it's not much better than the Buffet, although the service was good the waiters tried there best to satisfy us ,but you can't blame the waiter if the steak is tough or the fist is cooked to death , . . Our last QM2 cruise was in 2010 and it was excellent ,overall both service and food has declined considerably since 2010

Our room Horrible pillows , use a Duvet instead of a top sheet , How to cook in the Caribbean, this might be OK for an Alaska Cruise ,but not for the Caribbean .Even with the room temp all the way cold its still way to hot . No interactive TV system ,But did have a nice flat screen TV

Overall it appears Cunard is trying to Cut Costs and relying on its past reputation ,to target 1st time cruisers ,that don't have any history to compare more modern newer ships .

The Deceptive

On about the 3rd sea day we went to the Pursers office to check times in Port as they claimed to have changed the Itinerary , This is when we found out that they were not staying to 10.00 pm in either St Maarten or Barbados , we were told that they never stay past 5.30 and that our travel agent had printed the wrong times . Very Unhappy ,we talked to about 6 other couples that had viewed the same info from different travel agency's, one couple offered to let us make copy's of the Itinerary they had with them ,we brought that to the pursers office ,but they claimed it didn't have enough info . the next day were in St Thomas ,we called out travel agent and had them email a copy of the Itinerary to the ship. Sure enough St Maarten and Barbados were listed as staying to 10.00 PM . They claimed they had to contact Corporate office , a few days later we were contacted by the person in charge of the Pursers claiming that even though we proved them wrong they had the option of changing ports and times at there digression. I kind of expected this ,but they offered to write a letter stating that the itinerary was changed and we might get some compensation from our trip insurance . Right Good luck with that .

I feel like we got scammed , these are tricks that you might expect from a used car dealer ,not a claimed 5 star cruise line . We paid for 10 extra hrs as advertised [ bait] and than got zero with no compensation [switch] I would have been satisfied for the 200.00 it cost us to change cruises .

I Can't recommend this cruise or ship when they pull stunts like this ,avoid them, even if this was listed by mistake ,they should have offered a retraction ,before we made the final payment ,Not while we had started out cruise.

Cabin Review

Balcony, obstructed view

Cabin DC 5153

Cabin is a bit on the small side ,but has plenty of closet and draw space ,a new 32in flat scene TV with a remote that worked [ had many problems with remotes on previous cruises] Bathroom a bit dated , but clean and functional.